Hunter shoots and misses

Gerard Butler as Milo Boyd and Jennifer Aniston as Nicole Hurly in The Bounty Hunter.

As a film critic, I am supposed to evaluate every movie I see with as little pre-judgment as possible and a pair of fresh eyes. Yet, I knew that when I saw the preview for the Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler “comedy” The Bounty Hunter, that a stinker was headed my way. Perhaps this is not something I should admit, yet having low expectations of a film can sometimes be a good thing as there is the possibility of being surprised when it turns out to be not half-bad.

Unfortunately, Hunter winds up being far worse than I feared. Aniston is Nicole, a reporter investigating something she shouldn’t, who finds herself in the custody of her ex-husband Milo (Butler), who happens to be a bounty hunter. Seems she missed a court date on an assault charge and her ex is all too eager to bring her in. However, what begins as a bit of revenge for Milo ends up backfiring on him as he winds up dodging bullets right and left as the bad guys Nicole is about to expose come after them both with guns a-blazin’.

There’s not one original idea in the screenplay by Sarah Throp. Obviously riffing off the Robert De Niro-Charles Grodin comedy Midnight Run, the two leads bicker at the drop of a hat, which means eventually they’ll give the romance thing another go, and do their best to outrun the stereotypes on their trail. Aniston gets to stoke her ego by having her character prance around in high heels and a short dress while Butler delivers another turn as a lovable lout, which was wearing thin the first time he did it. The early front-runner for worst film of 2010, The Bounty Hunter not only wastes the audience’s time but manages to insult its intelligence every step of the way.